Shadows of Self
by Potterworm
Summary: The ultimatum that Lorelai gave Luke in ‘Partings’ didn’t cause their breakup. It only caused it to happen sooner. Without that ultimatum, what would have happened to Lorelai and Luke?


**Disclaimer**_: _Lorelai, Rory, Luke, all other recognizable Gilmore Girls characters, and all of the italicized quotes belong to Amy Sherman-Palladino, Dorothy Parker Drank Here Productions, and the WB. No infringement is intended.

**Summary:** The ultimatum that Lorelai gave Luke in 'Partings' didn't cause their breakup. It only caused it to happen sooner. Without that ultimatum, what would have happened to Lorelai and Luke?

**Author's Note**: All italicized quotes are from the scene between Lorelai and Carolyn, the psychiatrist, in Lorelai's parents' driveway in 'Partings,' episode 6x22.

**Proofread by: **Schuyler Lola

**Shadows of Self**

**By Potterworm**

/

"_Everything in the Gilmore house was "don't talk about it. Shove it aside." Of course, I talked about it and shoved it right in your face, but still, I don't know, I never saw myself getting married."_

/

Lorelai's not happy. She realizes that now, that the woman who stares back at her when she looks in the mirror is not the person she once worked so hard to become. Instead, she's that teenage girl, crying only in the cover of the night, because she thinks she'll never be loved. Not really.

She's ready though. She's finally ready to be married. She's been picturing herself waking up in the morning next to Luke - who will finally live at her house - and gossiping about her day at work to him when she gets home and eating dinner with him and falling asleep right next to him.

She's always been the type to move quickly. As opposed to change as people may think she is, Lorelai is the type who, once she knows what she wants, wants it right that very instant.

As she sits parked in a random space in town, having driven home from an impromptu therapy session with a psychiatrist in her parents' driveway, she can't help but think that while, yes, it would be nice to be married, what she wants more than anything right now is to recognize the person she's become.

Lorelai's not sure when she became the person who didn't say what she thought for fear that someone wouldn't appreciate it. She's never been that person before.

Tonight, she didn't even try to save Chris tonight from the set-up date before getting his okay. She's let Rory convince her that she's a bad mother, and she's let Anna convince her that she's only a temporary, fleeting thought. The sad thing is - she's let Luke convince her of the same.

Lorelai pulls out of the parking space and drives through town, past Luke's diner, and back to her own house. The house is dark. No one is waiting for her there.

/

"_When you're going through something, you never know when you're gonna need to talk. Sometimes it sneaks up on you."_

_/_

Lorelai paces around her house for twenty minutes, wondering what to do. On the drive home, she had pulled over to the side of the road, because for some wide and crazy moment, she had wanted to drive to Luke's and propose, again. She had wanted to propose that they move, move, move right now and elope.

In the cover of the night, they would slip rings of forever and on each other's fingers, say I do, and _mean _it. By the time morning came, they would mean to be together forever.

Maybe Rory would be mad to miss the wedding and Anna probably still wouldn't let her hang around April without dragging her feet, but they'd be _married _and they'd be together. And they'd be forever, and it would all be okay.

Lorelai paces past the couch five more times before she storms through her front door and down her front stairs. It's late now, so she doesn't see anyone as she walks through the town square, but it still takes her a lifetime to get to Luke's. By the time she makes her way to his front door, her feet have slowed from storming-mad to trudging slowly.

The diner is closed, she notices. She looks up to his apartment and sees that the light is off. He's already gone to bed; he's not waiting up for her. She's not surprised. He hasn't talked to her in days; he doesn't sleep with her anymore.

Lorelai considers calling up to him for a moment or breaking in. But she doesn't.

Instead, she walks home and calls Rory on the phone.

"Mom?" Rory's voice is tired and sleepy. Lorelai remembers vaguely that she's spending her last night with Logan before he moves to London.

Lorelai doesn't say anything then, doesn't even breathe.

She's too afraid to talk to Luke, she realizes, because she's afraid that giving him some elopement ultimatum could mean the end of them. (Or maybe, just maybe, she's afraid it could mean the beginning of them, and it's not just a fear of change this time, because she knows without a shadow of a doubt that they're not ready. Not now, not like this.)

"_Mom_?" Rory says more insistently. "Are you okay?"

Lorelai opens her mouth to speak then, to let it all pour out for the second time tonight. But her voice hitches on a sob, and she can't speak to Luke, and now she can't talk to Rory either.

Because she's never been more ashamed of herself than the day Rory came home from Yale when Luke and she broke up once upon a time and saw her just lying in bed, completely broken.

She's always been strong, and even when she's weak, she's kept up the façade in front of Rory. Lorelai flips her phone shut on her daughter's worried voice. "_What's wro-"_ Click. Goodbye.

She won't push Luke until they break. Rory won't have to pick up her shattered pieces. She'll take a deep breath and everything will be okay.

Lorelai's phone rings; her caller ID says it's Rory. She falls asleep to the ring of her cell phone.

/

"_I could lose him if I push too hard."_

/

The next day when Lorelai goes back into the diner, Luke rushes her. "Are you okay? I haven't seen you in days." Then he sees her face, and his slightly angry tone softens into something else. "Are you okay?"

No, no she's not okay. She feels crappy all the time, and not only does she wonder if he loves her, she's starting to wonder if he ever did. She wants to be strong and independent and feel like she did during her potting-shed days, living her life to its fullest, living one moment to the next with a smile and a surprising fortitude. She wants to know what she wants, and she wants to snatch it into her hands and never let go. She wants to -

"I'm fine, hon. It's just been a few busy days at work." -

- brush off his attempts at concern.

Lorelai expects him to hesitate for a minute; she expects him to look into her eyes and realize, like he used to be able to, that no, no, she's not okay.

Instead, he pours her coffee and says she's working too hard, but he's glad that it's finally calming down enough for her to come in to the diner. Does she want pancakes or French toast?

Lorelai loves him enough not to scream.

/

"_Only you can make you wait."_

/

Time passes by quickly and unremarkably. Lorelai and Luke continue in this state of never now.

They whisper sweetly in each other's ears during the few nights they spend together. He comments on how the jeans she's wearing work for her, and she laughs appreciatively the few times she sees him without a hat and a flannel shirt.

They go to the movies once a month or so, and sometimes, on good nights, he sits with her in her living room and watches movies with her, eating food, until they both drift asleep on the couch. She wakes up with his arms wrapped around her. Slowly, on those days, she disentangles herself, and goes to make some coffee. Sometimes, she talks to Rory on the phone; Rory's been exceedingly worried about Lorelai ever since the night Lorelai "butt-dialed" Rory. (Lorelai had lied to Rory. Rory had known.)

Those nights are few and far between. Her life is really confined to small periods of pure bliss. Most nights she just stares at her ceiling in a cold bed, while Luke sleeps across town, tired from his private bonding time with April and ready to wake up early for early-morning deliveries for the diner.

Lorelai's room is too big for just her, but the nights when she shares it with him are enough to make her wait for him… for them.

The wedding is just postponed, after all. Not canceled, right?

/

"_Did he accept right away?"_

"_Pretty much."_

/

June third comes and goes. Lorelai knows she's the one who proposed and she's the one who brought up postponing the wedding, but still, it's in her empty bed that night that she starts to hate him, just a little bit.

/

"_I saw this guy in front of me who was a real...man. He was solid, and he was strong. He would protect me, but he, he got me."_

/

All those things Lorelai said in her mini-therapy session in her parent's driveway are still true. Luke is still a big, solid, strong man. So when it's been over a year since he first met April, she mentions in passing, during one of their good days at her house that she wonders if April would like to come to Rory's graduation party.

The party will be in a few weeks, and then Rory will leave, but it will all be okay, because Lorelai still has Luke. And she can't help but think that he's strong and a real man, and he's surely had enough time by now to think about meshing their two families, even if it's just a little bit.

"I mean, obviously, it'd only be if April's home, because I don't know if she'll be here or in New Mexico, but if it's during your visit, I think Rory would really like it if April was there."

Luke stiffens though. "Lorelai," he says with a sigh, an _I __can't believe you're being this unreasonable _sigh. He doesn't say anything else.

"_Luke_," she says, sighing right back. She opens her mouth to say something, to say that they would've been married for a while now, and doesn't he wish that they were? To say that Rory's leaving soon, and she so desperately doesn't want to be alone forever. And please, please, hasn't enough time passed that she can meet April? It's not like she's going to scare the kid off, is it? Is that what he thinks? That she's so horribly unlikable that she'll just taint the whole thing? Doesn't he even care that she had almost called April Rory's step-sister a moment ago?

They drop the conversation though, don't say anything else. Once upon a time, that would have been unusual for Lorelai, but it's become the norm. This is who she is now. The woman who hasn't met her step-daughter to be. The woman who allows a postponement to go on for longer than most engagements do. The woman who does whatever she can to stay with a guy, because she's afraid she won't be happy otherwise.

The thing is, maybe Lorelai wouldn't be happy without him, but she's not happy with him either.

/

"_You don't really seem to have him now, at least not the way you want to have him. You won't get anything unless you ask for it. And if you ask for it and you don't get it, maybe it wasn't worth having in the first place. Some things are just never meant to be, no matter how much we wish they were."_

/

Lorelai knows she would have been wrong to run up to the diner and demand that they elope. She knows all her old reasons still stand, the reasons she didn't marry Max and Chris and the reasons that she knew she and Luke wouldn't have made it had they eloped that night.

But sometimes, she wonders. It would've been their anniversary today.

June third comes again. And it goes.

Luke works a long night at the dinner and stays there for an overnight delivery. Lorelai thinks that even if he had said no the night she almost asked him to elope, even if he had turned down her original proposal, it would've been better than this.

/

"_I bought that stupid dress, and now it's just hanging there, mocking me. And the crazy thing is, I am ready to get married. I am ready to start the next phase of my life. I want another kid, and I, I don't want to wait anymore. I don't want to be patient. I've been patient long enough. I'm not happy, and I feel crappy all the time. And I just think I've had it."_

/

Sometimes, at night, Lorelai gets out her old wedding dress, the one she would've worn when she was happy and smiling and just bubbly all the time. She sits on the floor of their bedroom - she guesses she can finally call it_ theirs_- and sits in a heap on the ground, feeling the material of the perfect dress. She doesn't try it on, doesn't imagine herself wearing it, simply holds it like a security blanket, like a promise.

One of Rory's visits home, she finds her mother there, lying on her floor, stroking the fabric of the dress. Rory stops mid-town gossip and stands in the doorway for a moment. Her hand finds her way to her mouth as she says, "_Oh, Mom._"

Lorelai tries to stand up and wipe away the tears she didn't know were falling, but she can't. Rory walks over and sits next to her, hugging her mother tight. The wedding dress lies between them as they mourn the never-completion of their family.

That night, they both cry. Lorelai feels less weak than she thought she would.

/

"_I don't think I ever really loved anyone until Luke."_

_/_

Lorelai used to love him so much that she couldn't breathe. She used to dream about being his wife. Now she dreams about being anything other than his almost-fiancé.

She knows there's always someone in the relationship who's loved a little bit less. She wishes to God that she knew which one of them it was.

/

"_Well, marriage was just a solution to a problem, not anything romantic or because you were in love."_

/

Lorelai finally snaps one night. It's been way more than two years since they should've been married, and now she's finally met April, not by coincidence and not for a party, but an honest-to-God introduction.

The girl is nice and way older than Lorelai had imagined, because in her head, April is still a twelve-year-old who needs protecting (at least, according to Luke). They get along wonderfully, and it's beautiful and happy.

But later when April's left, Lorelai makes the mistake of saying, just in passing, "Hey, now, wasn't that easy?"

And Luke takes offense and says, "What's that supposed to mean?"

And she says, "April's been the reason this whole time why you didn't want to get married, so that's settled now. Everything's so hunky-dory, why not just get married tonight? I'm sure the town minister won't mind!"

He surprises her though, stops himself from saying unforgivably angry words. He says, "Jeez, Lorelai, I'm sorry." He goes on and says that he loves her, that he's sorry it's taken him this long, but he's realized now that she's unhappy, and why don't they get married? Now, next week, it doesn't matter to him. He just wants to be married, because even though it's taken him awhile, he's still all in.

/

"_You need to decide what you want and what you're willing to give up to get it, and then you got to be okay with that, or you got to be okay with waiting."_

/

That night, Luke walks out of her house with the cardboard box of his things that she shoved in his arms twenty minutes after she rejected his proposal. (Later, she'll laugh sardonically at the fact that his meager set of possessions at her house fit into a single cardboard box.) Because, she realizes, that in proposing to her the way he did, he seemed to have forgotten that she had already proposed once. This attempt was just a cheap second shot.

Lorelai wanted to be married to him so badly, but not now, not like this. She loved him once; she still loves him now, in a different way.

But for the first time in years, as he walks out of her house - it was always her house, never theirs, no matter the fact that he was supposed to have moved in years ago - she's starting to feel like her old self.

Because Lorelai's not happy. She realizes that now, that the woman who stares back at her when she looks in the mirror is not the person she once worked so hard to become. Instead, she's that teenage girl, crying only in the cover of the night, because she thinks she'll never be loved. Not really.

And Lorelai wants a man that shows his feelings and loves her enough to not need to wait. She wants a man who's not happy living in a rut.

She wants to be the woman who once loved a man enough to show her feelings and loved that same man enough to not need to wait. She wants to be the woman who wasn't happy living in a rut.

Lorelai wants to wake up in the morning and feel happy. She wants to laugh and smile and feel like all the things she works towards means something and are more than just work stories. God, she wants her day to be more than just work stories.

Once upon a time, she was worried that if she pushed Luke too much, he'd run, but she didn't push him nearly enough. And now they've lost too much time, and more importantly, they've lost bits of themselves.

Lorelai wants to be the woman who left her parents' house of luxury because she knew it was the right thing to do. She wants to be the woman who worked her way up from maid to manager to owner of her own inn, all because was doing right by her child. She wants to live her life to its fullest. She wants to laugh and smile and love and say what she thinks and feels.

She wants to be okay with the fact that she's waited - _wasted? _- the last few years away with Luke. But she's not okay with waiting to be happy.

Not anymore.

/

"_It was nice meeting you. Bye. I got to go."_

/


End file.
